Suburban Auto thinks outside the trunk

This campaign has been around for a long time but it makes me laugh every time I watch it. 


I don't know where they found the lead actor who appears in each of the commercials, but he is magnificent. 


Here are four spots for your viewing pleasure. 


Daryl

IT'S ABOUT TIME

One of the best lessons I learned in advertising is: don’t sell the journey, sell the destination.

You could spend a million dollars advertising “Air Botswana” – the airline may have the most luxurious airplanes, the most efficient hosts and world class cuisine, but if people aren’t interested in going to Botswana, you’re wasting your time.

Montblanc sells elegant, efficient and well crafted time pieces. You know… watches. Remember them?  I don’t know about you, but most people I know have stopped wearing a watch because they get the time from their cell phone. So, if you’re Montblanc, your challenge is to help people appreciate ‘time’. The value of a minute. The fleeting wonder of a second.

I won’t lie to you. I’m not getting a gut-instinct one way or the other about this campaign. I have no idea if it will rekindle an interest in wearing a timepiece again. I think it does a great job getting people excited about their promotion, and I think it makes them about time. Buying a watch may be another thing. It’s an exciting gamble and I’ll be interested to see how it turns out.

All I know is, when I watched this ad… for just a moment… I missed my watch.

Hey you... BEND OVER

Hey you… BEND OVER!

Sometimes advertising coaxes its target audience.

Sometimes it begs, seduces or even threatens the intended audience to sell a product.

On the odd occasion, to my delight, advertising will slap you upside the head, knee you in the groin and throw you down a flight of stairs to get your attention. You gotta admire spunk.

Why would someone have to take such drastic measures?

Well… someone would have to do this when the target audience is very resistant to the product or service that is being promoted. The message I’m referring to in this blog is ‘long life and good health’.  Yup, someone is selling ‘long life and good health’ but the target audience (men) isn’t interested. In their minds, someone is selling them ‘a finger up the ass’. Naturally, the only way to get through to these guys is to take their childish fears and anxieties, stomp on them and throw them right back in their face to show them how foolish they are.

Enjoy.

The Encounter

At 5 AM one July morning in 2007, I awoke to the sounds of my daughter screaming. I flew down the stairs to her room on the main floor and found her sitting up in bed, staring at the foot of the bed and still screaming.

She was yelling that someone had grabbed her foot. A quick search of the room confirmed that no one was hiding in the closet or under the bed. The alarm was still set. No one had entered or left the house. At the time, my daughter was 17;  she had always been very responsible and we had no reason to believe that she was lying.

She recounted the story for my wife and I. A few moments before the incident, she had woken up and was lying in bed on her back, relaxing. Suddenly, she felt a distinct pressure on her right foot. At first she wasn’t alarmed because she thought it might be her cat, Mozart, reaching up and pulling on her to get her attention.  Mozart often slept in her room and let her know when he needed to leave. What my daughter didn’t know was that Mozart was in our room at the time. When she sat up, intending to shoo him away, there was nothing there. She could still feel the firm pressure pushing on her foot, but there was no cat clinging to her. In fact, it felt like a human hand was holding her foot and when she started to scream, it let go.

My daughter was so convinced that this wasn’t her imagination, she didn’t sleep in that room for several weeks.

This is why we believed her.

When we first moved to our current neighbourhood, we lived in a smaller house just down the street. Over the years, we got to know Mark and Sandra in the ‘big white house’ down the street. They had made a number of improvements to their house including the addition of a large back porch and a bedroom for their oldest daughter. We always admired their house and when Mark got a job offer in the states, they offered it to us before they listed with a realtor.

Two years after we moved in, we received a phone call informing us that Mark had been killed in a plane crash. The crash happened in June, 2007, one month before my daughter’s paranormal encounter.

For the first few weeks, none of us spoke about our thoughts concerning the encounter; we didn’t want to make it more ‘real’. But when we did start discussing it, we all had the same feeling. If there is such a thing as spirits, it would make sense that Mark would be drawn back to the house he lived in for so long… to a room that he had built for his oldest daughter. If the essence of the person we knew was suddenly ripped from his corporeal existence in a violent crash, he could be forgiven for being confused and returning to the wrong home. He probably felt it was his daughter he was reaching out to, in a comforting sense to let her know he was there.

Although she always believed that the encounter was not hostile, my daughter was uncomfortable returning to her room. I had to sleep there for a few nights to show her that the ‘haunting’ had passed. I have to admit though, for the first night, I kept my feet away from the end of the bed.

Eventually, my daughter resumed sleeping in her room again, and to the best of our knowledge, Mark has never returned. 

Recently, we had another bizarre experience with more sinister overtones, but that’s a story for another time.

Out of respect for our friends, their names in this story were changed. However, all other facts in this story were recounted as accurately as possible.

Hey... catch this!

My mind is reeling with old adages to get this started.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Don’t tell them how it works… show them.

Wash your hands before you eat.

If you keep making that face, it’ll stay that way.

Okay, that last one has nothing to do with this blog, but it’s memorable for me because it was the comment that made me realize my parents may not have been 100% truthful with me for the first five years of our relationship.

Is truth stranger than fiction?

Probably not.

Is it scarier than fiction?

Maybe.  

The people who marketed the movie Contagion realized that the premise of the movie was grounded in some truths that we all take for granted.

We are surrounded by germs.

They grow.

They can do bad things to humans.

The genius of this campaign is that they didn’t just tell the movie-going public, they decided to show them. And, with the beauty of a good viral video, they didn’t just impact people who passed the sign on the street.

Sadly, the video didn’t get the attention it deserved. When I watched it, there had been just over 357,000 views. I’m not sure what they used to get people to the video, but it deserved a better fate. Maybe the germ threat didn’t resonate with the heavy user younger demo. Maybe they prefer their horror to be masked and wielding a chain saw.

Check it out… and then, go wash your hands.

This was the ad they should have made 20 years ago.

Why is this ad effective? It's incredibly well done, it totally sells the product and it reinforces the brand. Really, I could go on, but less is more in this case. I can't even tell you the name of the product because it will ruin your enjoyment of the ad.

Tell the person who holds your calls to hold your calls (I wish I had someone who could hold my calls) click on the rather ungainly link below and give yourself 90 uninterrupted seconds of pleasure. 


http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=22984504&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00adef&fullscreen=1&autoplay=1&loop=0

A tribute to my dad on his birthday

It's odd that some things which should be obvious remain obscure until you've experienced them for yourself.

When I was in my mid thirties, my wife, Jill, gave birth to our daughter, Alexa. I loved being a parent and discovering the simple but incomparable joy of holding my baby girl. 

Four years later, we had our second child, Ben. As I held him for the first time and felt him snuggle into me, I remember thinking that I should enjoy this feeling while it lasts. Boys don't hug their dads once they hit their teens... at least that must be what I believed as I hadn't hugged my dad since I was twelve.

Sluggishly, the cerebral gears began to turn. Well, why didn't I hug my dad? Who stopped it? Me or him? Was there some unwritten rule about two men hugging?  It was something I hadn't even thought about as the father of a girl. It was perfectly acceptable for a dad to hug his daughter no matter what age they were... but somehow I had been secretly harbouring the belief that sons and dads didn't hug.

However, after only knowing my son for a few minutes, I was certain beyond any doubt that I would want to hug him whenever I felt like it for the rest of my life.

That was when the epiphany happened. A creeping realization slowly dawned on me that I might not be the first dad in the world to feel this way.

In fact, it might even be possible that my dad felt the same way about me.

I was only months away from turning forty, which meant that I probably had gone more than twenty-five years without giving my old man a hug. It wasn't something that had happened intentionally, but it had happened none the less and I resolved to put my new theory to the test. 

A few weeks later, we had a family event at my house. When it began to wind down and my father was about to leave, I followed him to the front door. After he put on his shoes and coat, I stepped forward and gave him a hug. A simple hug.

For one brief moment, he reacted as if I'd jumped out from around a corner and startled him. His body flinched, then he hugged me back. Fiercely. I thought he was going to crack one of my ribs and I couldn't help but wonder if he had been waiting all those years for my permission to hug again. 

Today, my son is closing in on eighteen. He's a man in his own right, and he good-naturedly endures my random hug ambushes. Cherished friends and co-workers are also included in my spontaneous displays of affection. 

And naturally... whenever I see my dad, I give him a hug goodbye.

It seems like a small thing, and I'm sure most people take it for granted but if I hadn't had a son of my own, I wonder how long it would have taken me to realize that my dad was patiently waiting for a hug from his son.

Happy Birthday, Dad. 

Shiny Chrome

Are you the type of person who looks at a blank piece of paper and sees a million possibilities? Stories to be written? Artwork to be created? Emotions to be expressed?

Google Chrome is betting that heavy users of the internet have a creative spark waiting to break loose and ignite the world. Their ‘Savage Love’ video campaign plays to that innate desire to be a creator.

The first time you see the video, you might wonder what the association is between Google Chrome and Dan Savage’s “It gets better” campaign. As far as I can tell, there is no actual association. Google Chrome piggybacks on the warm and fuzzy feelings generated by an on-line campaign encouraging gay teens not to commit suicide. The message is: you’re not alone, there are thousands of us who know what you’re going through and… it gets better!

Google Chrome is ultimately inviting other people who have a message and a mission to use the tools in Chrome to share it with the world.

In this commercial, as you watch the page views grow, you can’t help but get swept up in the experiential excitement… How long will it be until my campaign gets viral support from Anne Hathaway and Woody from Toy Story?

Google Chrome got it right. They started with a simple idea, demonstrated the end results and made a solid emotional connection. In a way, Google walks away with more emotion than they’ve really earned. It’s somewhat like a company that makes hammers sharing credit for the accolades heaped on the your new home.

They make this advertising stuff look so easy, you have to wonder why everybody doesn’t do it just as well.

Searching for gold

Hello, my name is ‘Daryl the Magnanimous’. I was considering ‘Daryl the Magnificent’ but my mind-reading skills still need work so… I’m kind of a work in progress, and um… whatever.

Where was I?  Oh yeah. We’ve never met, right? If we have met, just play along. Even though I don’t know you at all, I am seeing that recently… or many years ago… or somewhere in between… you attended a seminar!

Please… hold your applause.

You were really looking forward to this seminar but when it was over, tragically, you walked away with nothing. You were deluged with information, scribbled a bunch of notes but ended up remembering nothing.

Although it may be possible, it’s very unlikely that a seminar would contain absolutely nothing that you could use and benefit from in the future.

My personal goal in seminars, meetings or even chance encounters with people I respect, is to walk away with one nugget. That’s it. If I can leave with one idea that I can incorporate into my life, the engagement was worthwhile.

Twenty years ago I took a time management course. It was part hocus-pocus and part ‘heard it before’. I was almost fully checked out when the instructor dropped the nugget. “After you finish a task, ask yourself – what is the most important job I need to do next?”

The premise was - if you finish a task at 11:30 and you know you’re leaving for lunch in 20 minutes, you might do a few “C” jobs on your to-do list because you can get them done in a matter of minutes. That means you leave the important “A” job untouched. The instructor said – start the “A” job. In 20 minutes, you might only have time to lay it out and start thinking about it, but you are thinking about it. Over lunch, you might have an epiphany, or someone might say something that triggers an idea, and when you come back from lunch you’ve already organized your plan of attack. Your “A” job is well on its way to being completed because you decided to do it first.

Twenty years later, I still ask myself several times a day, “what is the most important job I need to do next?”

You never know when you’re going to find a nugget. My good friend C.R. Nichols was interviewing a man who was celebrating his 100^th birthday. At one point in the interview, C.R. asked him how his life had changed as he got older and he shared this simple thought.

“The days are long, but the years are short.”

Keep your mind open to finding the nugget.  You might miss that brief flash of gold in the pan if you’re not looking for it. 

Live The Dream

I was originally going to write about creative triggers that will help you generate "creativity on demand", even when you're suffering through the soul-sucking 'blahs'... but I was in one of these 'moods', and I just didn't feel like it, so maybe next week. 


The first lesson you learn in advertising school is "don't say it when you can show it". This series of ads is a perfect example of that philosophy. The fun items virtually explode out of the dreary ones. Of course you'd rather be surfing than ironing, wearing flip-flops than patent leather and sitting in a lounger by the pool rather than an office chair.  These ads are simple, bold and memorable. The creators of these ads, from DDB Vancouver, understood how to maximize a visual medium. Congrats team - it wasn't luck that won this lottery.  

Common Sense – Another stumbling block to Creativity

Sometimes common sense just gets in the way of a good decision.

After all, common sense will point you towards the safe route which is in the opposite direction of a creative adventure… or even the odd misadventure.

And, while common sense should play a major role in your life, occasionally you should leap before you look.

And when it comes to taking a chance, don’t leave it too long. You might decide that you’re too old to do it.

But do it anyway.

 

Where do ideas come from?

Good athletes make the most remarkable plays look easy. It isn’t easy, but their minds and bodies are trained to work in harmony so it becomes ‘natural’.

A stand-out creative idea looks remarkable for the same reason. The creative idea works in harmony with the product to look ‘natural’. 

One of my favorite classic campaigns was the “Big Mac Attack” for McDonalds. I have no idea how it originated but I like to believe that a six year old kid randomly said, “Hey dad, I’m having a Big Mac Attack”.

It was memorable, quickly became a pop culture trend and the idea worked in harmony with the product… effortlessly. It was a natural.

While planning a campaign for the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, someone at Euro RSCG likely said, “Listening to this music is like riding a roller coaster”… and they were right.

Creativity's biggest stumbling block - the Client.

Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) once said he wouldn't make movies in America because he didn't do 'comedy by committee'.

image from fanpop.com

Creativity in the world of advertising is a lot like that, even if the committee is just two people; you and the client.

The rule of a good copywriter is to give the client what he needs, not what he wants*.  When those two things are in conflict, and the client insists on having it his way because he is paying for it, copywriters often default to the second position.  That would be - give the client what he wants, and do your best to craft it in such a way that it is palatable and compelling for the target audience.

This is why copywriters die young.

If you possess a warped and devious mind, there is a third option.

Give the client what he wants.

Give it to him just the way he asked for it. Don't go overboard to add more warts to the concept - it is probably odorous enough as it is.

Then do the concept the way you know it should be.  Often, a client won't have the ability to envision a concept the way a writer can but if he can see it, hear it, or experience it then he will understand the benefits and strategy of the professional idea.

I must confess that in my industry, radio, it was not a huge commitment of time or resources to do two concepts. If you're in television or web design, producing two finished products may not be feasible. But if you're looking for a long term relationship with a client, the short term pain and investment could earn you the trust and freedom you need to create brilliance for an appreciative client.


*Largely Unnecessary Gender Disclaimer That I Am Enclosing Mostly For My Own Amusement:
I started writing "he/she" whenever I referred to the client but it was making things clumsy to read and my rambling copy is confusing enough without that, so I defaulted to 'he' and I will use 'she' next time. Can we all not be offended now?  Thank you.

Time to grow up...

At some point in everyone's lives, they realize they might as well just say what's on their mind because... oh, I don't know... they've finally figured out that political correctness is highly over-rated, or they've realized that they're getting older and running out of time.
(On the other hand, we all know people who come out of the womb shooting their mouths off and seem to have been born without any governor at all... but that's grist for another blog.)
In my humble observations, people generally wait too long to express themselves. Here's a test for you.  Do you have more regret about things you said, or things you wish you would have said? Sure... I'll bet you have a few big blunders that you'd like to undo somewhere in your past, but I'm also betting you have one of those comments that you didn't say and it probably happened as recently as yesterday.
Unless you're old. Then you probably just said it.
A few years ago, we had an elderly gentleman named Les who worked around the building doing odd jobs and maintenance. One year, at the Christmas party, as one of the staff was called up to the front of the room, Les remarked to the people at his table, "Well, she's put on some weight!"
"Les," chided a female co-worker. "I hope you don't talk about me like that."
"No, no..." he replied, brushing off the idea. "You've always been a big girl."
Just to be clear, I'm not saying that you should go out of your way to make people miserable; I just think that there's room in the world for a little more honesty. As for those people who couldn't quite see their way to being honest, well, I suspect they'd be much more cautious about what they said and the questions they asked, if they knew the rest of the world was likely going to give them an honest response.
Don't wait until you're too old to enjoy it. Take a chance on the truth. It's incredibly liberating.

Is Creativity The Tortoise or The Hare?

A number of people have told me that they simply aren't creative. Many of them draw this conclusion because they aren't the quick, flashy and funny people who entertain crowds at cocktail parties.

Creativity isn't a race. And speed is not a factor.

Creativity can be a beautiful and spontaneous experience, but it can also be slow and laborious. It can be impulsive, wild and breathtaking, but it can also be precise, painful and painstaking. I love the way Robin Williams' mind works - his thoughts move so fast it's like he is actually several people all trying to take control at the same time. I also appreciate the meticulous genius of Tom Robbins; he creates truly unique images by defining objects or moments or feelings with traits not usually associated with them. When you read these passages, they ring so true and seem so obvious, you wonder why you never thought of them that way before. I've never watched Tom Robbins write, but I'm guessing it doesn't happen at Robin Williams velocity.

Next time you're in your office struggling to make your presentation 'snap', or writing an inscription in a special book for a life-long friend and hoping it will be memorable... remind yourself that David wasn't chiseled in a day.

Photo: http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/arts/artwork/michelangelo.htm

Creativity is just the beginning. Bringing it to life is the key.

Nothing undermines a solid creative idea faster than poor execution.

By the same token, a brilliant execution can sometimes elevate a weak concept.

Before I really get started, let me get this out of the way… “When it comes to creativity in advertising, it isn’t creative unless it sells.” Yup, it’s trite and every writer hates to be reminded of this old adage but it’s absolutely true. In effective advertising, there is no substitute for uncovering and highlighting the emotional connection between the product and the target consumer.

My daughter recently introduced me to an ad that I loved on first viewing.  I liked it even more on second viewing and all because of the brilliant execution of the primary actor. As far as the emotional connection between product and consumer… I’m not sure I felt that.

On some levels the commercial works because it’s extremely watchable, memorable and absolutely bullet proof for any moms or dads that might see it.

It doesn’t work because… well, it doesn’t say anything about the car other than it’s a family car, I guess. I suppose you could make the argument that it continues to add to the legendary ‘personality’ of Volkswagen, but that argument is a bit obscure.

Bottom line: the star of this spot is the kid. I’ll tell you in advance that you never see the kid’s face but with his incredible body language, you totally ‘see’ his expression. But, as an advertising weapon, is it effective? I’d be curious to know what you think.

The answer may be no, but did you ask the question?

I've believed in aliens and UFOs all my life. At the very least, I've considered alien life on other planets to be a given. If you think I sound nerdy now, you should have been me in the 60's. It was an intolerent decade. Sigh.

But over the years, people have become more enlightened. Today, most folks would admit that they believe in the possible existence of life on other planets somewhere out there.

Recently the topic of UFOs came up during a gathering of friends on a Friday afternoon. One of our group, a teacher in her thirties, listened to the discussion for a while before giving her opinion.

"I'm not interested in science fiction."

When we reminded her we weren't talking about books or movies, but speculating on the theory of life on other planets, her attitude was even more surprising.

"I've never thought about it."

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Ever?"

"Never. Why are we wasting time with this?"

At that moment, I was struck by the thought that her classroom must be a very unfertile ground for new ideas.

I guess there is a possibility that we are the only life in the universe... I can't prove otherwise. But to not even consider the existence of other life? Hmm...

Perhaps one day, and I suspect it will happen in my lifetime, we won't need to speculate anymore. Until then, here's a video for you.  It suggests we should consider the existence of life on other planets as well as other far fetched ideas that may only need time to become mainstream.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/02/jerusalem-ufo-spottings-o_n_817689.html

Thanks to @iSpintheWeb for tweeting this link.

Technology on the brink of disappearing

I bought my daughter a Kindle for Christmas. Maybe I should have saved up for an iPad...

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/12_technologies_brink_disappearing

Sometimes you just have to follow your instincts

In 1998, Alvin and Pam Ross bought the town of Tortilla Flat, Arizona.  They bought it from Jerry and MaryJo Bryant. It's been a 'Ma and Pa owned' town for decades.

It wasn't a big town but it had a big history as a former stop on a Stage Coach route on The Apache Trail, America's oldest roadway. The town, consisting of a restaurant, museum and gift shop has a voting population of 6 and could easily have disappeared into history... but the couples who have owned the town shared a vision. They believed a character restaurant serving hearty portions of memorable food could grab people's attention, and they were right. Somewhere along the line, they stumbled upon another idea to get customers 'involved': they invited people to write their name on a dollar bill (or currency from their home country) and they began to wallpaper the place 10 square inches at a time.

When they began to fill the walls with money, the owners guaranteed they would fill their cash register with money, too. I'm guessing the owners would not have articulated it this way, but they stumbled upon two key ingredients that marketers take for granted now. First, people want to be heard; they want to have their moment in the spot-light. Having their name stapled on a wall for hundreds of thousands of visitors to see is a kind of immortality. Plus, they had formed their own virtual community. People love to belong to exclusive clubs and the proprietors of the town of Tortilla Flat provided that.

They aren't the only people in the world to come upon this idea, and they probably weren't the first, but they instinctively knew it would generate a buy-in from their patrons and today they are legendary for it.

Not every instinct should be followed, but they shouldn't be disregarded either. Some of the best ideas sound crazy when they're first spoken out loud. I'll bet when that restaurant in Tortilla Flat had five bills on the wall, no one believed they'd eventually cover every square inch of wall. If the idea had never been voiced, the thriving metropolis of Tortilla Flat (population 6) might just be a dusty photograph in an Old West Museum.

After a lifetime of 'creativity on demand', I still consider myself a poser.

That was my first thought when I set out to write a blog on creativity. In my opinion, every person on Earth is endowed with a dollop of creativity (yes, it's measured in dollops) so why should I feel entitled to coach anyone on how to unleash it?
Why indeed. And even if I thought I should, how would I start?
The logical thing to do would be to define creativity so we're all on the same page. But if that's the logical thing to do, is it creative?
Ergo, I'm not going to attempt to define creativity other than to say it's the art of living life differently. For people like Steve Jobs, it's recreating the way the world listens to music and how complete industries are financed. Yes, world changers walk among us.
But, there are also people who are only interested in changing their own worlds. I met a person on twitter who engaged me with her upbeat outlook on life. She often tweeted about her customers and the interesting interactions she had with them, but when I asked her where she worked, she was hesitant to tell me. Ultimately I discovered that she worked in the drive-thru window at McDonald's, a job that could easily be described as an unchallenging, dead end position. Not for her. The flexibility of the job suited her immediate needs and she had decided to make it bigger than it was. On certain days she would bring homemade baked goods as a thank you to her many regular customers. On other days she would ask customers the name of their favorite recording artist and when they pulled up to the window, she would sing them a few lines from one of that artist's latest hits.
As you may guess, she had a lot of regular customers and I'm sure many stopped in even if they didn't really need a coffee. Her creativity was infectious.
Creativity is different for every person. But I believe the creative process has triggers and disciplines that can be utilized 'on demand' to make your life more interesting.
The world is on the verge of a communication explosion through which every person with access to a smart phone can touch millions... but with all this technology content is still king.
Content is king. It's a cliche. I could have phrased it in a more creative manner but I didn't because A) there's a reason it has become a cliche - it deserves to be a cliche - it's uber-important, and B) even if you are the world's fast marathon runner, sometimes you prefer to walk.
Content is king. But, creativity is the guy who makes the big bucks because he makes the king look even more regal. 
And before you can point it out, I'll throw myself on the sword and confess that this isn't the most creative blog format I could use. It's a process for all of us and I am a student as well. If you choose to follow and read along, we'll learn together.
After all, creativity thrives in collaboration and sharing does not diminish the giver.
Now... what will tomorrow bring?